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BT has received a verbal kicking from punters following last week's announcement that it will up the speed of its retail broadband services to 2Mbps for all but its 'basic" services.

While plenty of customers will be happy to see the speed of their service accelerated up to 2 meg, a number of BT Broadband users have spotted a downside to the announcement.

The problem, it seems, is that while those punters currently subscribing to the frill-less BT Broadband 1 meg service will see the speed double and the cost fall by four quid a month to £24.99, they will also see their monthly usage limit halved to 15 gig.

Register readers have been quick to point out the sleight of hand. Wrote one bemused reader: "Have you noticed BT are increasing the downspeed to 2 meg they are halving the monthly transfer cap to 15 gig? There is no option to opt out of this and cancelling the contract will 'incur penalties'. Not that there's ever an option with BT."

Another writes: "I was a happy man this morning as I saw a BT envelope lying on my doormat - excellent info about the new free 2 meg upgrade. Even better they're reducing the cost to £24.99. What a lovely company - 'more for less'."

That was before he read the bit about halving the usage allowance. "Hang on, my current 1 meg line from BT gives me a lovely 30 Gig a month. Are BT paying for their upgrades by halving the download limits of its customers? Now I can get half as much twice as fast."

What of those households with multiple broadband users, he asks. "Since many of us live in houses with one or two more active net users, 30 gig a month starts to dwindle fairly fast and at a new 15 gig limit, a house of just two active users gets chopped down to 250 meg a day."

And this from a company that boasts that "BT is about giving value for money".

A spokesman for BT said the changes would only affect a small minority of punters. ®